Why Fuel Capital invested in Flexport

About Fuel Capital

Fuel Capital is an early-stage venture firm investing in consumer, business software and cloud/ infrastructure companies.

• Burlingame, California, United States
• 1-10
• Venture Capital
• Early Stage Venture, Seed
• fuelcapital.com

About Flexport

Flexport is a full-service global freight forwarder and logistics platform using modern software to fix the user experience in global trade.

• San Francisco, California, United States
• 1001-5000
• Convertible Note
• Private
• www.flexport.com

Our Investment in Flexport

Introduction to Fuel Capital

Founded in 2013, Flexport is a full-service air and ocean freight forwarder, providing a robust platform and end-to-end service for modern logistics teams.

Real-time tracking, structured data, shipment-specific communication, and a dedicated team of experts make running a supply chain through Flexport simple, reliable, and accurate.

Flexport: Revolutionizing Freight Forwarding

Flexport makes it easy for brands to move their inventory from the manufacturing line to consumer’s hands.

The way most freight forwarding works today, customers move their inventory from the manufacturing line to a truck, through customs, onto a ship, overseas, into port, onto a truck, through customs, into a distribution center (sometimes multiple times) and finally out to retail or direct to consumers.

And most of this is managed by fax, phone and paper. Flexport digitizes this entire process, improving transparency and cutting out cost at nearly every step.

Meeting Ryan Petersen: A Founder with Vision

When we first met Ryan, he had just wrapped up YC Demo Day. Within :05 minutes we knew that Ryan had the playbook and DNA for building a massive company in this unsexy and overlooked space of freight forwarding.

Prior to Flexport, Ryan and his brother started ImportGenius, a company that scraped shipping manifests and sold the data.

The more time he spent in the space the more he realized how software could squeeze tremendous inefficiency out of the freight business.

Growing up in Tacoma, WA, I had a unique window into just how big this market is. My neighborhood overlooked the Port of Tacoma which over the past 20 years has grown to become the 5th largest port in the world.

I often spent time growing up just watching the ships move in and out of the ports, and counting the rail road cars carrying those containers up and down the coast.

Many of my neighbors worked at the port. When we heard Ryan’s pitch, we immediately got involved.

Impressive Growth and Market Impact

Flexport is well on its way to becoming a category defining company. The company has grown 750x in the past four years, a staggering number in an industry that largely hasn’t innovated in decades.

Conclusion

Ryan is one of the most purpose-built and driven founders we have met and we’re thrilled to be an investor and part of the journey.

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